Category Archives: Performance

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The words spoken by Gene Kelly at the beginning of the film, That’s Dancing, are a real favourite of mine. I have quoted them many times in my work. For me, these few words say so much about dance, its roots, its present and its future. They are inspiring and spoken by a man whose life was dance, dance, dance.

Read or spoken mindfully these words remind us of the dance that is within us. I was delighted to discover the video below, on YouTube, of the opening credits to the film That’s Dancing and if you listen to the very beginning you will hear the dulcet tones of Gene Kelly saying these wonderful words:

Long before the dawn of history, long before he could sing or even speak, man danced. Moving to his own internal rhythms, the pounding of his heart, the beating of his pulse, primitive man discovered dance. It is within us always.

Like this:

Imagery was part of my dance training although I did not think of it as movement or dance imagery at the time. It was just something we incorporated into our training and performance. When I first took part in a movement/dance imagery workshop with Eric Franklin at an IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine & Science) conference many years ago I was reminded of how important imagery is in dance learning and teaching.

Articles and books

In recent years there has been an increasing amount of articles and books promoting the positive use of imagery in training, rehearsal and performance. Although imagery has been around for a very long time it is still relatively new to some. We can learn a lot from the study and use of imagery in our teaching.

Mabel Todd’s wonderful book The Thinking Body, first published in 1937 (and still available today), tells us on page 295: Continue reading →

Creative people over at TED-Ed Original have produced a great educative, animation video about The physics of the ‘hardest move’ in ballet – the fouetté. If you have ever struggled with performing or teaching fouettés then this short video will interest you.

Did you enjoy the video? What did you learn from it? If you have found it useful for your performing or teaching then please leave a comment below that others might find helpful.

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Hello and thank you for visiting my site. I am passionate about promoting ethical practice in dance teaching and learning. And I love helping dance teachers to enhance dance teaching knowledge, skills and understanding through my Short Online CPD Courses for Dance Teachers and articles that I write for this site.